


de caelo exspectans pluvias

by Seika



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Massage, Post-Will of the Empress
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-20 00:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7384339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seika/pseuds/Seika
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Looking for the rains from heaven” – Deuteronomy 11.11, Nova Vulgata.</p>
            </blockquote>





	de caelo exspectans pluvias

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Caiti (Caitriona_3)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caitriona_3/gifts).



Morning dew on the grass. Asaia and the Green Man. Sky and Earth.

And his name might be Briar, but there’s none of the Circle who ever gets called prickly more than Tris.

 

The green mage and the weather witch are – so people say – one of the Circle’s more natural fits, just like Sandry and Daja are the pair of craftswomen. As a rule, the ‘people’ who need to comment on the four of them like that are simpletons who can’t keep their business to themselves: the bond between the four of them runs so much deeper than how their magic inclines, and if she and Briar were really natural friends, their first days at Discipline would have very very different.

Still, there are times like this when she can almost believe it, calling down the clouds to soak the earth. Tris getting to pour out her power like this is a rare enough occasion, and she should be glorying in the flow of magic, the boiling clouds, the beating rain. But, when Briar’s with her, there’s so much more to it. She can feel not just the rain itself, or its splashing on the ground, but all the _life_ that needs and loves water, revelling in the deluge. She can feel his power too, stretching out alongside hers for miles and miles, encouraging the parched earth to soak up its sudden bounty instead of letting it all run off to flood the rivers. Urging on roots to sip and suck and gulp their gift, to pass it up into withered bodies and make them strong again.

They’re out on Emelan’s eastern plains, near the border with Sotat: a trek familiar enough to her brother, dragged one way by Niko, and another by Rosethorn. Some sheep-brained idiot has been stirring up the weather patterns, trying to pull rain away toward the Hajran farms; Duke Vedris’ men have been working with Tris, tracking the Sotatan landowners’ money to find out which mage has been lured into this business against all the sense that their medallion should accredit them. Sandry, steps ahead by noble instinct if not documented proof, thinks that there’s something deeper going on. Perhaps even as far as the King himself, trying to remain friendly in appearance while taking advantage of his neighbour’s “terrible misfortune”. Whatever the plot and however much malice lies behind it, the real result is that eastern Emelan’s fields in turn have been left dry and dusty for far too many weeks at a critical point in the summer.

It’s a tricky business, undoing this kind of damage. She can’t just do the same in reverse, or else she’ll just pass the debt along, dry out some other country, ruin the livelihood of some other undeserving farmers in turn. She has to siphon off wind currents and clouds from where they can be spared, and keep them coming – but not in too solid a stream either, or else she’ll drown what had been a desert.

So - as much as she glories in the exercise of her power, and of her control, and in Briar alongside her - straining at this, for hours upon hours over day upon day, stretches her thin. This night, she barely manages to stay upright when she scrambles off her horse by the inn’s stable. She leans against a post while Briar leads both their mounts to have their own grateful drink of water, then hands them off to the stablegirl for proper care.

“Up we get, Coppercurls,” he says cheerfully on his return, then loops her arm over his shoulder to offer her support. She grumbles something vague, meant to liken his continued sprightliness to that of a spring lamb head-butting a fence, but it comes out jumbled in her exhaustion. She flushes at her tongue’s clumsiness, and turns to their bond. Just for caution’s sake, _this_ jab is a lot shorter and to the point, but Briar laughs it off anyway.

The innkeeper, tall and jolly and grey-bearded, already knew and liked Briar for the times he’d been through on this route to and forth from Gyongxe. “Good lad, good lad!” he booms as they come in. “See her up, then we’ve hot stew and bread for the both of ye. And if you need anything for one of your miracle ointments, but say the word!” As they slip past him up the stairs, Briar flashes his brilliant smile, and confesses to her that he’s glad the kindly old man remembers him for his healed leg, and _not_ for the first time he’d been through, with Niko.

“Rude, I was, and dirty, so 'spose it’s no surprise old Kit doesn’t think him and me could be the same.”

It’s an opening for another little barb from her – an opening clear enough, in fact, that she’s puzzled he could have left it – but she looks up at his musing face and lets it pass. The mind behind those clear green eyes isn’t working at their usual games right now.

They find their door – the wood a little brighter, a little more vital than the others, thanks to Briar’s presence – and push through. Tris stumbles for a second as they enter, but Briar stays steady, roots her until she can find the energy to shuffle forward and collapse face-first on the bed. She sighs with relief, while he makes a play of stretching out his back. She’d flick a spark at him, but she’s too caught up in enjoying the fresh, clean coolness of her sheets.

“I’ll get us some of that stew,” Briar says, “then see about making you feel less of an old lady.”

That does earn him a jolt.

He leaves, and she’s left to roll onto her back and lazily sweep over the room with her eyes. They’ve been at this inn for a week now (on the Duke’s coin, thank him kindly, says a miserly childhood voice) and the evidence is starting to show. Even as travellers, she and Briar won’t be separated from their books, and several have made their way out of their bags and are lying around the room. Hers, for the most part, are in an orderly stack by her side of the bed, though she catches a glimpse of one or two out of place, where she must have put them down absentmindedly when something else distracted her; Briar’s are scattered far more chaotically here and there, though she knows not one of them will have a bent spine or a creased page.

She smells the stew on her breezes several moments before Briar steps through the door, deftly balancing bowls, bread, and spoons. They each set to with a will, and the food's gone in record time. As Tris lies back, enjoying the warmth and heaviness in her stomach, Briar carefully gathers up their crockery and sets it all to one side before softly telling her, "Don't fall asleep yet, Tris."

She groans, but dutifully rises to strip out of her dusty travelling clothes and quickly clean herself off, using a touch of warmth from a braid to heat the water into which she's dipping a cloth rag. She can hear Briar picking through his mage kit behind her back, glass clinking as he shifts through jars of enriched plant foods and magical insect deterrents. A mental nudge from her elicits nothing but a sense of old-oak _patience_.

Clean as one gets without a proper tub, she pulls out a little more heat to dry herself quickly and pleasantly warm her skin, then finally turns to see what he's up to. He's found what he was looking for: a small ointment tub, though with her spectacles off and the lamp's flame low, she can't see more than that.

"Horses got a proper rub-down after the ride, so I thought you prob'ly deserved one too," her brother says with a quick smile.

The comparison makes her sputter for a second (and she takes a mental note that tomorrow he might  _deserve_ some time being sprayed down by water outside her rainshield) but she obediently lies down on their bed.

"Get any of that on the sheets, and it's your silver," she murmurs.

"Trust my hands, Tris. A gardener's got to be sure with 'em."

She hums affirmation at him and lets him get to work. He brushes her braids away from her head delicately, a slight touch moving magic that could shake mountains. Then he sets himself to a slow and thorough massage, pressing deep where he has to but never approaching the point of pain. His hands are strong, careful, and warm even against her flushed skin; his ointment (mint, apple, and some unidentifiable ingredients from the East, her nose tells her) spreads smoothly and evenly, seeming to sink heat _through_ her skin directly into aching muscles and bones. As he finishes each part of her body, he presses a little, dry, close-mouthed kiss there: neck, each shoulder, the palm of her hand.

And Tris, tired but relaxed, and wrapped in love, drifts away to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> (I may have fallen asleep instead of posting this on the due date and therefore defaulted like an idiot. Oops. Sorry. It is at least here now).


End file.
